HOT

With the coolest temperature of the day being 87 degrees at 5am, I forget that it can actually be cold here. A few months ago, it was so cold, I found ice in my front yard. Being such a rare occurence, I had to take a picture. Now I look at it dreaming of cooler weather. Maybe I should take day trips on the weekends to cool down.

Book Signing

Confession: I like teenager books. Maybe it's because I never liked reading in high school because the books we read in school I thought were boring, or because I prefer quick, easy reading to books with words I have to look up in the dictionary. Maybe it's because I'm still a kid inside or I prefer to stay away from adult themes. Whatever the reason, I really like teenage science fiction books especially. Here a few titles I've read somewhat recently:

• Uglies Series
• The Maze Runner
• The Hunger Games Series
• The Roar
• The Supernaturalist
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox
• Running Out of Time
• Found (The Missing Series)

Last night I finished, The Maze Runner by James Dashner. I had a little trouble getting really interested in it, but once I did, I was hooked and finished it in less than a week.  I like the whole concept of the book. It's about a bunch of teenage boys who show up in a glade surrounded by an impossible maze. They remember nothing of their former lives, but they live pretty happily in this glade working hard to keep their physical needs met and even harder to try to solve the maze. I was never convinced that any of the characters were as smart as they were supposed to be (Orson Scott Card does this really well in Ender's Game), but I enjoyed it anyway. I'm pretty excited to read the next book in the series, The Scorch Trials.

Tonight, I went to a book signing for Illusions by Aprilynne Pike. Four years ago, I was playing games at a friend's house, and she told me about a story her sister-in-law just got published called Wings. When I moved to North Carolina, I discovered the book in the library and read it. It was quite good! Definitely an early teen romance book, but I liked it anyway. The second book, Spells, was even better. I now look forward to reading Illusions. I find it interesting that one person I talked to four years ago directly affected my evening tonight. I would not have gone to that book signing if I had no connection to the author. It makes me wonder how the things I've said to other people have affected them.

Anyway, this was a quadruple book signing! Four authors, many books! The books by two of the authors seemed especially ridiculous to me---vampire romance novel with 10 books in the series and mucho teenage angst going on. I enjoyed twilight, but this just seemed over the top. One author stuck out to me though. When Veronica Roth said she likes The Giver and read Ender's Game seven times, I immediately liked her.  Her personality and vibrance increased that liking even more. I could totally see myself being friends with her. Then I read the plot summary of her debut novel, Divergent, and I liked her even more. It's my favorite genre---young adult dystopia! More amazing is that she's only 22. I used to always think authors were older than me. Now they are my friends. I look forward to reading Divergent and hope it's even better than I'm imagining.

In response to this article, I don't think any of these books are inappropriate for teens. They might be too dark for younger children, but I'd much rather see a teenager reading these books than watching much of the lousy TV shows and PG-13 movies that are popular today. (Don't get me wrong---there are some good new TV shows and PG-13 movies, but I'd say the majority are just a waste of time.)

And now that I'm pretty much out of vacation days at work and thus will not be taking any more cool trips around the world for quite a while, I should find plenty of time to read all of these books.

Flying Free Trip #11: San Francisco/San Jose

My life has been very fortunate. I've always earned decent grades in school. I've never been in a car accident. I've always had just enough money to get by. And best of all, I've met and been good friends with a lot of really cool people. One of those people is finishing up a post doc at Stanford and just earned himself an awesome job at Google. (Yeah, I'm a little jealous...) Back in February I decided that I needed to see the Golden Gate Bridge, so I contacted my Stanford friend. I was unfortunate in my timing---it was pouring rain the entire time---but I really enjoyed the day anyway. We also went to the exploratorium (my favorite kind of museum) and Stanford campus. As it turns out, I have another friend who is now his roommate, so it was nice to get the chance to see two old friends again.

Flying Free Trip #14: Orange County California

This weekend, I played the oboe in the OCMCO Orchestra (Orange County Mormon Choral Organization). I was either playing oboe or eating/sleeping the entire time, so I didn't get to see much, but I enjoyed the opportunity. The music is fun to play, and the concert hall is beautiful! I saw the Newport Beach LDS temple briefly while driving to rehearsal, but I didn't even get a chance to take a picture. I'll have to go back.

Flying Free Trip #12: Flagstaff

I love Flagstaff. I went to school there for a reason. It's beautiful. The air is clean. You can see the stars. You never have to drive far (or in my case drive at all---I didn't have a car, just a bicycle). There are excellent out-doors activities. The weather is beautiful (except when it's freezing cold). The sun still shines a lot even though it gets cold sometimes.

Snow!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a great opportunity. I accompanied my old roommate and really good friend on her drive back to Flagstaff. The drive was pretty, and we caught up on all of the things that have happened in the past few years of our lives. We went out to dinner, and then I flew home.

I didn't take any pictures, but here are some old ones.

Dominating a rock on Mt Eldon

Bouldering down the face of Mt Eldon

First time hiking Mt Humphreys

My cave room

Turning all of these into oboe reed cases

Jumping off a pole

Second time hiking Mt Humphreys

Flying Free Trip #3: Utah

I love hanging with my family. We have so much fun together. Today while hanging with my sister and my dad, my sister pointed out to me that I don't write in my blog very often. She's right, it's been nearly a month. Plus, I'm behind on blogging all the cool places I've traveled to. I'm pretty fortunate that I can fly around the world for free or super cheap.

Last summer, my family went on a trip to Utah. We have a lot of family from there, so it was a nice trip. I drove up with the family, and flew back early because I couldn't take that many days off of work. I'm thankful that I have a job where I can take some time off work as needed. I really enjoyed the trip. On the way, we saw this really neat canyon.

We had a family reunion in the canyon of the mountains next to the small town my ancestors are from. There we did some of our favorite family activities: Ate good food including lots of sweets, played with the little kids, and played Rook. We play this version of Rook that I'm pretty sure only exists in this small town, but it's so big they have a tournament every year. One of these years, I need to join the tournament. I really like Rook a lot.

Me and two of my cousins decided to get back to Grandma's house by bicycle. I was the fortunate one with the normal-sized bike.

After the reunion. We visited BYU campus because my brother is thinking about going there. We also visited my great grandfather's grave. After this, I flew home. My brother was dropped off to not be seen again for two years, and the rest of the family drove home a few days later. Don't worry, my brother went to the exciting city of Chicago to teach people about the LDS church. He's dedicated.

Sewing Project #6: My Favorite Skirt

This was a our last project, and by this point in time, several of the students in the class wanted the day to catch up on old projects or make one of the projects from a class they missed. Apparently most people don't really want a "naughty secretary skirt" as the pattern is called. So, I was the only person in the entire class (of 12) to make the skirt. I happen to really like my skirt a lot.

I think I'm finally prepared to sew a dress. However, first I have another skirt pattern I'd like to try out, and I still need to finish sewing project #4: pajama pants.